Bio
Biography and Photos
Roy Richard Grinker
Roy Richard Grinker
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Signed photo of Sigmund Freud
My grandfather was analyzed by Sigmund Freud. Freud gave him this photo just before my grandfather returned to the United States. Freud charged $25 an hour, equivalent to $330 in today's money, all paid for by the Rockefeller Foundation (in those days you could get an academic grant to be psychoanalyzed). My grandmother had high hopes that the analysis would help my grandfather, but she was soon disappointed and wrote to Freud to complain. "Dear Dr. Freud," she said,  "a couple of months of have passed and I see no changes in him."

Roy Richard Grinker is Professor of Anthropology, Human Sciences and International Affairs at the George Washington University. Grinker has published books and articles on topics such as the ethnic conflict in central Africa, the intellectual history of African Studies, and north-south Korean relations. He has conducted research in the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Korea, Swaziland, South Africa, India, and the U.S.

Grinker was born and raised in Chicago. He graduated from Grinnell College in 1983 and received his Ph.D. in Social Anthropology at Harvard University in 1989.

In 2005, he received a grant of $120,000 from the National Alliance for Autism Research/Autism Speaks, to conduct the first ever prevalence study of autism in Korea. His co-PI is Young-Shin Kim, M.D., Ph.D. of Yale University. Other members of the team include: Yun-Joo Koh, Ph.D. (site PI in Korea), Eric Fombonne, M.D. of McGill University, Bennett Leventhal, M.D. of the University of Illinois, and Dong-Ho Song, M.D. of Yonsei University (Korea). Their findings, based on a total population study of approximately 35,000 children (ages 6-12), will Their findings, based on a total population study of approximately 35,000 children (ages 7-12), were reported in 2011. Information on the article here:

http://www.focus.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleid=116570&RelatedWidgetArticles=true

Follow the links for media coverage:

http://www.npr.org/2011/05/09/136066097/autism-may-be-far-more-common-study-suggests

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/09/health/research/09autism.html
Between 1985 and 1988 I conducted twenty-two months of fieldwork with the Lese farmers and Efe Pygmies in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

My great grandfather Julius Grinker practiced psychoanalysis in Chicago in 1911. He couldn't handle the intensity of his patients' emotions and quickly retreated into the field of neurology.

My Grandfather (photo)
My grandfather, Roy R. Grinker, Sr., a pioneer in American psychiatry. He founded the psychiatry department at the University of Chicago, was the founding editor of the Archives of General Psychiatry, and was a prolific author.

My father, Roy R. Grinker, Jr., M.D., is still a practicing psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. 


©2007 Roy Richard Grinker